The government consultants hired to review the U.S. military\u2019s plans to conduct expansive live-fire training on Tinian and Pagan will submit today, Oct. 2, [Oct. 1 PDT San Francisco time] their formal comments to the U.S. Department of Defense, joining a chorus of other government agencies and public bodies opposing the military\u2019s project as it stands now.<\/p>\n
Dentons LLC\u2014in their initial review and findings on the legal adequacy of the \u201cCNMI Joint Military Training\u201d project\u2019s draft environmental impact statement\u2014called for a second draft. They say a new round of public comment, with a heavily revised environmental impact statement, is needed before the U.S. Department of Navy moves further with its decision.<\/p>\n
Dentons has said that the Navy\u2019s document will not provide a legally defensible basis\u2014under the National Environmental Policy Act and relevant federal and local environmental and historic law\u2014for the Navy to sanction their live-fire project.<\/p>\n
Denton\u2019s comments, along with those from Environmental Science Associates, jointly form the offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor\u2019s official comments on the military\u2019s live-fire plans.<\/p>\n
Gov. Eloy S. Inos, in his cover letter, will call on the Navy to withdraw and reconsider its proposal, Saipan Tribune learned. Inos will insist that the Navy\u2019s proposed actions present an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to the islands\u2019 tourism-driven economy, fragile ecosystem, and cultural resources.<\/p>\n
The CNMI has already leased two-thirds of Tinian and whole island of Farallon de Medinilla to the United States for training purposes. Inos will call on these facts and supportive partnership with the U.S. in his letter.<\/p>\n
The Department of Navy\u2014through the Marine Corps Forces Pacific\u2014plans to dredge acres of coral reef on Tinian and construct four live-fire training complexes on the island and train for a period that CNMI officials say is ill-defined.<\/p>\n
One beach, Unai Chulu, is part of a National Historical Landmark and is being eyed by the Navy for landing ramps for military assault vehicles as part of live-fire training inclusive of grenades, mortar, and rocket ranges, among others.<\/p>\n
On Pagan, the military plans to conduct similar training but notably proposes leasing the entire island to support training that they say will only occur on the northern part of the island. That training, like on Tinian, will include expansive restricted air and sea space. The training targets a spot on Pagan\u2019s northern volcano for thousands of pounds of highly explosive aviation ordnance.<\/p>\n
Chorus of opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n This week, the CNMI Historic Preservation Office and the Department of Commerce decried the military plans in comment letters filed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n In a 12-page letter, Commerce notes the military\u2019s failure in calculating the true economic effects of their training on the island economy. Meanwhile, HPO laments that historic surveys on Pagan as inadequate, and that the Navy failed to conduct adequate public outreach, among others.<\/p>\n Commerce cites a \u201clack of rigor in calculating economic projections\u201d and projects an adverse impact on power utility rates on Tinian. It recommends that the Department of the Navy construct its own power generation facilities and use the excess capacity generated by that facility to supplement residential ratepayers.<\/p>\n HPO concerns cite an \u201cimproper scope of analysis,\u201d saying Defense has proposed a series of military training actions\u2014including the Mariana Islands Training and Testing project, the Divert Activities and Exercises project, the Guam and CNMI Military Relocation project, and the CJMT\u2014that would be implemented in the same place, at the same time, and with impacts to many of the same historic and cultural resources.<\/p>\n HPO said the draft EIS does not do an adequate job of identifying the historic and cultural resources that will be impacted by the CJMT. \u201cThe limited information presented in the document is more than enough to confirm that the Navy\u2019s preferred alternative would wipe out a staggering number of historic sites and cultural resources\u2014by the Navy\u2019s own admission, at least 197 on Tinian and 75 more on Pagan,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n HPO also pointed out that there are three official languages in the CNMI: English, Chamorro, and Carolinian. \u201cTo date, the Navy has refused to provide the draft EIS (or any portions of it) in any language other than English. HPO is extremely concerned that CNMI residents who primarily speak Chamorro or Carolinian (many of whom would be particularly affected by the cultural resource impacts of the CJMT) have been effectively denied participation in the EIS process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The government consultants hired to review the U.S. military\u2019s plans to conduct expansive live-fire training…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[3539,1503,1093,200],"class_list":["post-211665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-cjmt","tag-eis","tag-hpo","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}